Ramblings of an Emergency Physician in Texas

Pill may cut hearing loss from noise

Pill may cut hearing loss from noise
This is a long MSNC article about an anti-oxidant medication (which will be in a liquid form, not a pill when tested). The researchers hope it will help diminish, or even prevent, noise induced hearing loss.
You need a lot of pre-arranged noise to test this sort of thing, and for statistical power you need a lot of subjects. So,

STARTING IN a few months, a group of 600 Marines at Camp Pendleton in California will face rifle training with not only foam plugs in their ears, but also a drink that tastes very much like Wild Berry Zinger herbal tea.
They?ll take it with every meal during their two weeks of the noisy training, an experience that normally erodes a bit of hearing ability from about 10 percent of trainees. And if all goes as hoped, hearing tests will show that a substance dissolved in the drink made a difference.

I want to know other things from this, like are their sick-call rates changed from cohorts?

Comments

Those foam ear plugs usually work very well. It’s astonishing that as many as 10% of the trainees had hearing damage. I suppose there’s just too much noise for the plugs to handle when a lot of rifles go off at the same time in a small area.

I certainly hope this little experiment is over with by the time my son gets there next year. I have my “bag of worries” all ready to go now that he’s signed on with the USMC. Being a guinea pig wasn’t part of the pack! ;)

It would be nice to see the results, not only of the hearing test rates but as you mentioned and related sick call stats.